A Good Year For Butterflies?

Last weekend I visited J&J in Drerbyshire and on the Sunday we took a visit to Carsington Water.  I'd been there before but more on the look out for birds.

In spite of a little rain and a few overcast periods, there was little difficulty in finding butterflies, though my first positive sighting apart from hoverflies was actually a common blue damselfly. 

Common Blue Damselfly

Meadow browns were all over the place but it was particularly pleasing to me that there were also a good few gatekeepers - surely the first time I've seen them in the UK since I was a youngster in Nottinghamshire.

Gatekeeper (underwing)

Gatekeeper (upper wing)

Confusion with meadow brown is possible but the gatekeeper has a double 'eye' spot on the underwing and clear orange colouring on the lower upper wing, which the meadow brown does not.

Almost as good was when J pointed out that there were small coppers.  These have already been reported in the North East but especially good to get after a I messed up the first photo opportunity.

Small Copper

Small skippers were again numerous and we also saw two small tortoiseshell and a few commas and ringlets

Comma

Ringlet

The notable absentees today were common blue (again) and small heath.

We had a quick look at the lake but didn't see much of interest.  I thought I spotted a little egret but it seems to be a juvenile.

Egret

After two hours we hadn't got very far and I spent an annoying twenty minutes trying to catch up with a very mobile sedge warbler, J's camera battery having given out.  In the end I got half of it as it played hide 'n' seek in the bushes.

Find the sedge warbler!

Small White and Green-veined White

There were some large whites at times too.

All in all, a very enjoyable visit

Urban Sightings and Fritillary Forage

Quite a bit has happened over the past week!

I've had my eye on a brownfield site near the Metro Centre that has a fair spread of bird's food trefoil. So I thought it might be a possible for Common Blue or Dingy Skipper and took a look last Friday.

Tramping through the brambles and various forms of litter I saw neither but what did turn up was three or four small heath - the first I have seen this year.  I checked back briefly the day after and they were still about.

Small Heath

Giving up the idea of more sightings I decided to try out a cycle route to the town centre I've never used. But a bit beyond Dunston on Teams Road I stopped to watch a red admiral I thought might be ovipositing on nettles.  Lo and behold what should then fly over the road side habitation but a common blue.  I saw about four of them and a brown butterfly that proved to be a large skipper - both first sightings for this year as well:

Common Blue

Large Skipper

It just shows that urban environments can too easily be overlooked.

One thing that I haven't seen since I moved to the North East has been any kind of fritillary.  So on Monday I decided to return to one of my old haunts - Mabie Forest near Dumfries to see if I could find any there.

It wasn't the most brilliant day with reduced temperatures and only intermittent sunshine so I was relieved when my first sighting came along - perhaps unsurprisingly another small blue,  There was four overall, as at Dunston all males.  And even better I actually managed to spot the first pearl-bordered fritillary before even reaching the known 'butterfly hotspot.'

Common Blue

Pearl-bordered Fritillary

This is the time of the year when pearl-bordered and small pearl-bordered fritillary flight seasons overlap and there are identification issues.  Several were only seen in flight making proper identification impossible but one among the ones I photographed and one seen in flight were heavily worn suggesting pearl-bordered, indicating they were definitely in preponderance.

There was however one possibility that I had overlooked and as a result initially misidentified:

Dark Green Fritillary

What surprised me here was that I associate them with late rather than early summer at Mabie.  However from a total of nine it may be they accounted for some of the ones flying past, notably those strong on the wing.

I was also surprised by the number of dragonflies that were about right at the beginning of June: Hopefully I've got them right.

Common Blue Damselfly

Emperor Dragonfly

There were also a couple of moths:

Brown Silverline

Cinnebar Moth

There were perhaps 10 of the brown silverline on the day.  The only other time I have seen cinnebar moths was I think at Dumfries station.

There were also a couple of mysteries which had me facebooking the experts:

Blotched-winged Whitebelt

Tibula Scripta

I have a separate photo that proves the white belt bit on the first one.  The other one is a cranefly, and craneflies are a notoriously tricky area.  The wings of tibula scripta are transparent in the photos I've seen so I suspect they may be giving an image of the background leaf.

Other butterflies seen were green-veined white and four speckled wood, which I mention because they were not much present in Dumfries and Galloway when I lived there.

On leaving the 'butterfly hotspot' I still hadn't spotted a small pearl-bordered fritillary and was beginning to speculate that, as the more common species, their development had been held back by the dry weather.

However, just over halfway back to the car park one turned up in a clearing where two paths meet:

Small Pearl-Bordered fritillary

A bit of luck always enters into it!

Meanwhile there has also been activity in the garden.

A few days ago I was very pleased to see a couple of goldfinches plundering the seed in one of my pots that has been invaded by forget-me-nots.  I've never seen them in the garden before.  Also the bullfinches continue to enjoy the sunflower hearts from the feeder.

Another near misidentification (which has been a bit of a theme lately) but I've also been getting visits from patchwork leafcutter bees of both genders.

Bullfinch

Patchwork Leafcutter Bee

Bees but no Butterflies

Foraging in the garden and a visit to Wallington Hall Walled Garden have produced a fair selection of bees but not much in the way of butterflies.  The occasional orange tip and green-veined white has turned up but mainly on trips out.  The big question is what has happened to the speckled wood? I reckon my confirmed total for Spring was two when normally I would have expected to see scores.

In the garden tree bumblebees and carder bees have been fairly consistent while the red mason bee has been much less in evidence.  More common than in previous years have been garden bumblebee and early bumblebee, turning up fairly regularly.

Garden Bumblebee

Early Bumblebee

I've continued to tangle with the odd nomad bee, of which this is an example:

Nomad Bee

Nomad (underside)

I've seen these before so not uncommon. I'd hoped the all-red and black underside might be a clue, but it seems to get me no further.

Red-tailed bumblebees have started to turn up and at Wallington, I got a nice view of a red queen:

Red-tailed Bumblebee Queen

Also there were a few white-tailed bumblebees and one or two that had a break in the abdominal stripe, meaning they could have been broken-belted bumblebees.  White-tailed have also been spotted in the garden.

White-tailed Bumblebees

Wallington provided me with a first damselfly of the year - a common blue.

Common Blue Damselfly

More of a puzzle amongst the honeybees was this. Eventually I came to the conclusion it was a late-appearing buffish mining bee.

Buffish Mining Bee

On the way to and from Wallington I heard and saw several yellowhammer, and tried unsuccessfully to take a photo of one on the way back.  Notably I did not see a single bird of prey and only heard one skylark.  At one point I thought I might have heard a grasshopper warbler but couldn't be certain.

In the garden there have been no noteworthy birds apart from a brief appearance by a woodpecker , but there is an obvious reason for this:

Grey Squirrel

Puffins and Terns

I now strongly feel I'm playing catch up on summer events and not winning.

Anyway, just over two weeks ago Vicki, Alex and I achieved a target by taking the Coquet Island boat trip.  On the way we made a brief trip to the Hauxley reserve, which however was somewhat disappointing.  The water was low, species fairly limited and the low sun made it hard to identify what was there.

We did catch up with some female eider ducks and thought we saw some little grebe but others were harder to identify.

Female Eider

? Duck

I was for example uncertain about the bird on the right above.

In fact we had better luck with non-avian species, coming across small tortoiseshell, common blue and common blue damselfly.

Common Blue

Common Blue Damselfly

Of course avian flu has been a factor all along the Northumberland coast but you wouldn't have thought so on sailing round Coquet Island, where there were still birds in big numbers.  Apparently the RSPB warden has been bagging up any dead birds for disposal.  A large number of atlantic seals just off the island suggested they had plenty to be interested in as well.

The main reason for going was to see the puffins for the first time and we saw plenty, even flying across our path when we were still a little way off the island.  There was a bit of a swell on and it was hard to hold the camera steady to get pictures with the boat tossing around.  But perseverance paid off in the end.

Puffin

Puffins

The rare roseate terns were also present and I could see the area where they were supposed to be.  Unfortunately I couldn't get clear photographs at all and could only really identify common, arctic and (without realising it at the time) sandwich tern.

Terns

The sandwich tern is the large, white bird in the centre of the near foreground above.  The arctic terns have lighter tail and trailers than the common terns - or so I understand.

Arctic Tern

But it was the puffins who were the real entertainment.